


and she smiled like a knife

by Caelum_Blue



Series: Azula Week 2020 [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Family History, Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen, Genetics, Smile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25182016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caelum_Blue/pseuds/Caelum_Blue
Summary: Written for Azula Week 2020. Prompt - Smile.Azula doesn't know it, but when she smiles, the older members of her family see a ghost.
Relationships: Azula & Azulon (Avatar), Azula & Lo & Li
Series: Azula Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818433
Comments: 23
Kudos: 146





	and she smiled like a knife

**Author's Note:**

> Y'know that smile Azula has? The one so scary it has its own leitmotif in the musical score? (Which might just be Azula's leitmotif but Azula and her smile are pretty intertwined so *shrug*) Yeah so here's my headcanon on that.
> 
> Title is 100% a Good Omens reference.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was easy to convince Zuko to play with her. All she had to do was sigh and say that it was  _ fine _ if he didn’t want to, she understood, he couldn’t shoot his flames as high as she could  _ anyway _ -

Zuko scowled and stomped towards the less-flammable part of the garden to warm up for what were sure to be some spectacularly average fire blasts. Azula smirked, pleased. Her brother didn’t see.

Lo and Li did.

Azula was only six, but she noticed the way people looked at her. She was learning how important opinions were in the Fire Palace, and how the simple act of observation was a necessary survival skill. She’d certainly had plenty of practice observing Father’s reactions to her firebending practice.

Azula’s smirk faltered, and she studied Lo and Li for a careful moment, wondering if they wouldn’t approve of her methods of acquiring a playmate. It might be trouble if they didn’t. Lo and Li had served the royal family for decades. They’d overseen the upbringing of most of Azula’s relatives, and they had the ear of Fire Lord Azulon. If Azula misbehaved, Father would hear of it.

Lo and Li didn’t look displeased, however. If anything, they looked briefly startled, and then oddly fond. Lo smiled, and Li shook her head.

“Best not to keep your brother waiting, Princess,” said Lo.

“Not after he so graciously agreed to play with you,” said Li.

Azula huffed and paid the old servants no more mind, dashing off to show Zuko how to do a  _ proper _ fire blast.

* * *

“Up for some early morning practice, are we?”

Azula whirled around to find her grandfather had entered the training grounds. Fire Lord Azulon regarded her bemusedly, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with a seven-year-old. He probably wasn’t - Azula had noticed he didn’t seem terribly fond of children. 

She pulled herself up straight and looked up at the old man. “Yes,” she said. “I’m practicing my tornado kicks.” She was practicing her tornado kicks because Father had taught her the move yesterday -  _ Father _ had, not Master Kunyo. Father had taken it upon himself to give Azula a special lesson, as a reward for how quick she was learning. Azula had been so  _ proud, _ Father  _ never _ gave Zuko that kind of attention.

Except the tornado kick had proved tricky. She hadn’t gotten it right on the first try. Or the second. Or the tenth. Father’s frown had grown more and more pronounced with every failed kick, until he’d finally scowled and dismissed her with a scowl that had made Azula’s heart miss a beat. Father wasn’t patient, but  _ she _ wasn’t  _ weak. _ She knew she couldn’t leave it at that.

So here Azula was, drilling herself to perfection. 

Grandfather raised an eyebrow. “Before sunrise?”

Dawn was a blur of pink light on the horizon. “I wanted to start early,” Azula said.

Grandfather hummed. “You have a better work ethic than some of my generals,” he said, and Azula couldn’t help but preen at the praise. She didn’t know Grandfather very well, but she knew he hated laziness. “Well then,” Grandfather said, taking a seat on a bench at the edge of the training ground. “Why don’t you show me what you’ve been working on?”

Azula froze. “But...Father isn’t here.” It was a stupid thing to say, really, but - she barely  _ knew _ Grandfather. She only ever showed him her firebending when Father wanted to present her progress to the court. Grandfather had never seemed very impressed.

Grandfather huffed. “Can a man not wish to see his own granddaughter’s progress? I should like to see what you’re capable of  _ without _ your father hovering in the background. Come now.” He waved his hand at her. “Show me what you’re working on.”

She didn’t  _ want _ to show him her tornado kick. It was far too sloppy, she wasn’t getting the twist right, her landing was unbalanced, and she was so focused on getting the form right that she could barely put any power in the flames. It wasn’t perfect, and Azula  _ knew _ she couldn’t show off anything less than perfect.

But Grandfather was the Fire Lord, and the Fire Lord wanted to see her tornado kick.

She faltered her way through three in succession before he said, “You aren’t shifting your weight properly on the first swing. Practice that part a few times before you try again. You want to make sure you’re steady on your right leg before you push up into the jump. And do it without fire for now.”

Master Kunyo said stuff like that a lot, usually when he was trying to get her to focus on technique rather than power. Azula’s instinctive reaction was to huff and roll her eyes, but she managed to stop herself from doing so, because this was not Master Kunyo. This was the Fire Lord.

And it was more advice than Father had bothered to give her yesterday.

She did a few weight shifts in quick succession, feeling how to properly lean into her right leg, and then she bent her knee and sprang upwards. The actual spinning part of the kick was still sloppy, the landing still unbalanced, but - but she’d managed the first part.

“Much better,” Grandfather said, and that was more praise than Father had bothered to give her yesterday, too.

They kept at it as the sky turned pinker and pinker, Azula going through the motions again and again until she felt the memory of them sinking into her muscles, Grandfather calling tips from the sidelines. He wasn’t much of a teacher - but not in the same way Master Kunyo, who often over-explained and made things boring, wasn’t much of a teacher. Grandfather simply wasn’t a teacher at all, and often had to re-explain himself.

But finally, when the sky had turned from pink to gold, Azula landed without stumbling, and Grandfather said, “Almost perfect.”

“Almost isn’t good enough,” Azula said immediately.

“Indeed, it isn’t,” Grandfather agreed, “but you’ve still made more progress in one morning than some other people I could name. Come now, my dear,” he said, standing up from his bench. “One more kick, and then we’ll go get breakfast.” He gave her a sly look. “Use fire this time. Aim at me.”

Azula only balked for a second before she grinned and did as her Fire Lord instructed. Shift, jump, spin, kick -

The flames were more powerful this time, now that she knew how the movement went. Grandfather parted them easily as Azula came down for her landing, but he looked pleased. Azula felt a thrill run through her at this success, and she turned back to face him with a smile.

The look on Grandfather’s face faltered. He blinked down at her for a long moment, gaze strangely blank. Azula felt her smile start to slip from her face - but then Grandfather suddenly smiled back. “Well done, little princess,” he said. “You bring honor to your ancestors.” A strange thing to say, but before she could wonder about it he was reaching towards her, gesturing her forward. “Come now, let’s go have some breakfast, hm?”

* * *

That was his  _ mother’s _ smile.

Iroh had never noticed before. In his defense, he had never spent much time around his niece. When she had been a child, he had been Crown Prince, and he’d spent months at a time on campaign in the Earth Kingdom, bringing honor and glory to their nation. When that honor and glory had turned out to be shame and tragedy and he’d returned home a different man, Azula hadn’t seen fit to spend time with  _ him. _ He’d reached out to both children at first, after the loss of their mother, the loss of his son. Had wondered if he could help them, had hoped they might help  _ him. _ Zuko had been receptive. Azula had not, but Iroh had made the attempt anyway, for Lu Ten’s sake. His son had loved both his cousins, and Iroh owed it to him to try. But Azula had soon made it clear she was her father’s daughter, and Ozai and Iroh had never been close.

Were far less close than Iroh had ever realized, apparently. It rankled every time he bowed to his brother, seated upon his stolen throne.

It would have been well within his rights to challenge Ozai to an Agni Kai, but Iroh knew a potential political disaster when he saw one. The Fire Nation couldn’t afford a civil war, not when they still had the whole world to conquer. And Iroh was so very tired, and after the loss of his son, the idea of fighting to reclaim what was his just seemed...pointless. So he bowed and called his brother Fire Lord, and Ozai smiled.

Iroh had always thought Azula smiled like her father. And she did. Even as a small child, she had the same smirk Ozai would make while sparring, or plotting, or watching some hapless politician make a fool of themselves in court. 

Iroh had last seen her smile like when she bid her newly-banished brother farewell. Now, three years later, he saw it again, just before she shattered a seashell.

“Hm, must be a family trait,” she smirked. “Both of you so  _ quick _ to get to the point.”

Shell fragments tinkled as they hit the floor, and Iroh realized.

He’d forgotten, but there it was now, gracing the lips of the first princess to be born into the royal family since Fire Lord Sozin’s reign. She was older than when he’d last seen her, a young woman now, her lips painted red, and as they curved up into something sharper than any knife, Iroh felt a pang of bittersweet nostalgia.

It wasn’t Ozai’s smile. Not originally. 

It was Fire Lady Ilah’s.

How had he never noticed that Ozai had their mother's smile?

His mother had smiled like that when she managed to put Azulon on the defensive in a sparring match, when she aimed her arrow at a tricky target, when she discussed battle strategy with advisors, when she’d outmaneuvered political opponents. She’d learned that smile from  _ her _ mother, the Fire Nation’s most brilliant tactician in the early years of the war. Grandmother Bhanupriya had worn that smile at the Battle of Han Tui, at the Battle of Garsai, at every assassination she arranged to get Prince Azulon on the throne. 

There'd been a time in Iroh's life when that smile had meant safety, and love, and that things were going to fall perfectly into place and everything would be alright.

It was a dangerous smile, the smile of a predator cornering her prey, of a woman who knew what she wanted, how to achieve it, and was already assured of her victory.

And now he and Zuko were on the receiving end.

Iroh hadn’t fully appreciated how terrifying his mother’s smile was until he saw it on his niece’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated and will help me get through the ridiculousness that is bound to be my Monday this week. *headdesks*
> 
> Uh...notes? Let's see.
> 
> I'm operating on the assumption that Lo and Li were some sort of...idk indentured servant maids for Ilah and followed her into the royal family and stayed in their service after her death. They raised that whole family.
> 
> Azulon really DOES NOT know what to do with children and is probably trying to pull up 40-year-old memories on what raising Iroh was like. XD This is one of the very few times Azula spends personal time with her grandfather. It's not enough to make her care when he dies.
> 
> Here's what a tornado kick looks like:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9gTVQWZDI  
> I am by no means learned in martial arts so idk if the tips I had Azulon giving are viable or not.
> 
> While it's pretty awful that Iroh decides Azula "is crazy and needs to go down", I do think it was the only decision he could make. She was actively hunting them, had just shot him, and pretty obviously meant to do them harm. That's not the time to reach out to your antagonistic niece and try to get her to go on a life-changing field trip with you. And in my case, in their meeting scene in The Avatar State, I'm pretty sure Iroh, after giving her the benefit of the doubt, greeting her courteously, and getting rebuffed, is very quickly recalibrating everything he knows about Azula. They left her in the Fire Nation three years ago, she's obviously grown, gotten more skilled, has had no one but Ozai to influence her, and now she's here smiling and acting like the most dangerous woman Iroh ever knew. No wonder he suspected a trap from the start.
> 
> If you want to know more about my take on Ilah, please check out my fic Eye On Target, it's hilarious.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at caelum-in-the-avatarverse.


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